Is Speech Therapy Really Worth It?

Is Speech Therapy Really Worth It? I've had a stutter since a young age. But I never took speech therapy because I never saw it as a problem. Now as an adult, I have really bad self esteem and my stutter has become really bad. I can't talk as easily now. I'm now scared of talking. Here's the key. When I'm by myself, I can talk into a microphone with relative ease. And I can also do voice impressions. I have recorded myself having conversations with pretend questions and pretend dialogues that I ask myself, and it comes out well. I still stutter, but I can manage well. But when I'm in front of other people, the stutter multiplies by 10,000 and talking becomes very difficult. So I think this is just a case of performance anxiety, self consciousness, social anxiety, low self esteem right? The only difference in the two situations is that the 2nd one involves other people so there's a social fear I want to get over this and reach a point where I can talk to other people easily (whether I stutter or not, I don't care). Off late I have considered speech therapy because I've been told that they teach you fluency techniques, relaxation techniques, so that even if you are nervous, you can use those techniques to talk. However it comes at a whopping $150 per hour. So my question is, is it really worth it? I'm guessing the other alternative would be to just be your own therapist - Practice in the real world, experiment with different techniques, teach yourself how to relax, shape your own fluency and ultimately replicate the same fluency you have when speaking to a microphone when talking to actual people? Like exposure therapy? Is that a realistic approach? Does it work? Or do you recommend speech therapy? Do they teach you things in speech therapy that you cannot pick up on your own?